The transition from boy to man is one of the central aspects of the novel, and Chas is ultimately faced with a decision a mature adult would find daunting.

The McGill family bookshelf consists of a shelf of Left Book Club titles including, we are led to understand, Orwell's Homage to Catalonia.

The Maltese of the Low Street are described in pungent detail as petty criminals and vice merchants although Chas does establish a friendship with some of them.

This is a development of the theme of maturity and also Chas's growing sense of political identity informed by what he has read in his father's books.

No mention is made of the heroic resistance that had so recently been underway on the island of Malta, and the reader is left with a lingering sense of unjustified mistrust about one character until late in the novel.